Dennis Hof might sell sex for a living, but his oft-maligned profession didn’t prevent him from emerging victorious in the GOP primary for a Nevada State Assembly seat. The brothel owner has a lot in common with President Donald Trump, and he believes that the former host of The Apprentice and owner of the Miss Universe Organization paved the way for his big win.

On Tuesday night, Dennis Hof handily beat his incumbent opponent, James Oscarson, in the Republican primary race for the Assembly District 36 seat. Former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss was among those present when he found out that he had won the race.

Hof’s bid divided some members of the GOP party in the Republican-leaning district in Nevada, but at least one Hof critic told the Los Angeles Times that he would turn out to vote for him in November. According to Slate, Hof is also expected to take down his Democratic opponent, Lesia Romanov.

Many Republicans running for office are torn over the whether they should fully embrace Trump and his policies or distance themselves from the president. Dennis Hof is the former camp, and his open admiration for the POTUS clearly worked in his favor.

“It’s all because Donald Trump was the Christopher Columbus for me,” Hof told the Associated Press. “He found the way and I jumped on it.”

The owner of the famed Moonlite Bunny Ranch and half a dozen other Nevada brothels has even deemed himself “The Trump of Pahrump. Hof also looked to Trump for inspiration when penning his memoir The Art of the Pimp. The book’s title was inspired by Donald Trump’s 1987 best-seller The Art of the Deal.

null

During an interview with the Independent, Hof pointed out some of the other similarities between himself and Donald Trump. He observed that they’re both wealthy men who “love hot girls,” and they’ve both appeared on reality shows; Trump had his various iterations of The Apprentice on NBC, while Dennis Hof and the legal prostitutes who work at his Moonlite Bunny Ranch appeared on HBO’s Cathouse: The Series.

What Hof didn’t mention is that both men have also been accused of sexual assault. According to TIME, two former prostitutes have claimed that they were sexually assaulted by Hof years ago. Trump’s many accusers include Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice. As reported by the Independent, Zervos has alleged that Donald Trump groped her. She later filed a defamation suit against the now-president and was recently given the go ahead to depose him.

null

Donald Trump’s numerous legal troubles and sex scandals have not diminished him in the eyes of many of his supporters, and one Dennis Hof voter indicated that all of the negativity surrounding the president played a role in his decision to back the brothel owner in the Republican primary for the Nevada state legislature.

“I did it to piss people off,” Nye County resident Sean Hunt told TheLos Angeles Times. “It’s the same reason I voted for Trump. I knew it would drive liberals crazy.”